His arm still mostly around Sirius’ neck, Remus mindlessly smoothed stray hairs over Sirius’ shoulder and down his back, distantly aware of the risk of pinching his hair in his embrace.
“I love you,” he said, simultaneously out of the blue and inevitable, having felt it on the back of his tongue for days, if not weeks.
Somehow, it had been easier to say getting to face the fact that Sirius was probably right, that Remus’ parents did in fact seem to love him, and how it was beyond anything Remus would ever get to experience.
Remus’ gaze had been on Sirius’ shoulder, only finding his eyes after speaking, a vulnerable tenderness in his expression.

While Remus had never said those exact words to him before, Sirius had definitely heard it several times, hidden in their caresses and all the other lovely things that Remus would say to him, so it took him a moment to properly wrap his head around what he was hearing.
Remus found his gaze just as the words really sank in with Sirius, causing a happy grin to appear on his lips while happy tears prickled in his eyes, barely able to hold himself together.
“Yeah?” Was all he could think to say, having never doubted that Remus loved him too but there was something so special in hearing it out loud.

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Sirius’ reaction left little room for doubt, his smile confirming everything Remus had thought and felt, feeling it bloom in his chest.
“Yeah,” Remus replied, a little shaken by it, too, as an overwhelmed smile tugged at his lips.
He probably had for a while, but the closest he had gotten to saying it was by attaching himself to something Sirius’ had said, but already then filling it with hesitation; this had to be different.
“I do.”

It took everything in Sirius to not just outright giggle, feeling so close to Remus that even the fact that they had to put a lid on their physical intimacy out here didn’t matter at all.
There was nothing that he would ever be able to respond to that, feeling so overwhelmed with love for Remus that he could barely stand it.
He killed the remaining embers of his cigarette on the wall next to him, freeing his hand to cup Remus’ face and bridge the small gap between them and kissed him.

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In the few moments Sirius took to discard his cigarette, Remus’ smile properly gained footing, a juvenile grin splitting his face in two.
Even though the evenings spent in Remus’ childhood bedroom offered some semblance of privacy, Remus felt the absence in the way his stomach flipped when Sirius reached for him, relieved and in love.
Rather than withdraw the arm he had around Remus, the embrace remained a tangle of arms as Remus’ hand pushed into the hair on the back of Sirius’ neck, pleading him to stay close.

Their positioning on the wall and the tangle of their arms made for an awkward embrace, but Sirius couldn’t find it in himself to lean away enough to get untangled. He knew that he and Remus only had very few windows to be intimate like this, so he wanted to make the absolute most of it.
When their grins made the kiss too hard to maintain, Sirius gently broke it but he barely moved away, hand still on Remus’ jaw and gently running his thumb along his cheekbone.
“Say it again,” he requested softly, knowing that it was extremely silly, but he had craved hearing those words from Remus ever since he had first realised that he loved him, and he wanted to be able to properly hear it this time and be able to soak it up.

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Loosening his grip around Sirius slightly, Remus’ hand fell to the back of his neck. There was a moment where Remus wasn’t sure what part specifically Sirius wanted repeated, but it dawned on him with a giddy little smile, having to find the courage to stay in this.
“I love you,” he repeated, leaning in to press a kiss to the high point of Sirius’ cheek, another to his temple. “Sirius, I love you so much.”

Sirius felt like he was about to explode, having been so desperate for this kind of love that he could barely handle actually having it within his reach.
Remus was right there in front of him, holding him and telling him that he loved him and Sirius didn’t now whether to laugh or cry, feeling so happy that he could barely contain it.
“I love you, Remus,” he answered, feeling that that was the only thing he could really say and knowing that words would continue to fail him in this situation, Sirius simply leant in to kiss him again.

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Though Remus had often before heard Sirius say as much, it was entirely different when it was a reciprocation, a shared something. It almost made him want to sob with the regret of not saying it earlier, while simultaneously knowing it couldn’t have been different.
Shifting into the embrace, Remus finally removed his hand around Sirius’ neck, instead grabbing for his waist, using it as an anchor to better meet the kiss. Remus loved, and loved, and loved Sirius to the point where it felt endless, like he could never grow tired of it, and Remus kissed him like he was a breath of air.